Why Right Mindfulness Might Not Be Right for Mindfulness

Jared R. Lindahl 0 ) Cogut Center for the Humanities, and Department of Religious Studies, Brown University , 59 George St., Box 1927, Providence, RI 02912 , USA - Monteiro, Musten and Compson (2015) examined a number of critical issues in the ongoing debates concerning the nature of mindfulness and its applications within and beyond clinical psychology. Often appearing to take a neutral stance in relation to the debates between traditional mindfulness and contemporary mindfulness, their primary aim was to assess the validity of criticisms concerning the conceptual integrity of contemporary mindfulness (p. 1). In particular, they evaluated the relationship of contemporary mindfulness to the Buddhist doctrines of right mindfulness, the degree to which suffering is alleviated in traditional and contemporary mindfulness, and whether Buddhist ethics should play a more explicit and pronounced role in mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs). The authors were careful throughout the article to suggest what could be done rather than what should be done in the ongoing dialogue between traditional and contemporary mindfulness. This commentary suggests that this stance leaves a number of implicit assumptions unexamined or underexamined. In particular, two key issues will be explored: (1) the assumption that Buddhist conceptions of suffering and psychological conceptions of suffering are compatible and serve as an adequate point of departure for the translation of mindfulness from traditional contexts to contemporary applications in psychology and (2) the consequences of importing Buddhist ethical and normative frameworks associated with right mindfulness into contemporary mindfulness. The field of contemporary mindfulness has developed under the assumption that Buddhist theories and practices have a contribution to make to clinical psychology, and indeed empirical research has demonstrated that for certain physiological and psychological problems, MBIs have a degree of efficacy that warrants their consideration as viable courses of treatment (Goyal et al. 2014). References to Buddhist theories and practices portraying them as philosophical, psychological, scientific, or even secular in nature have become commonplace among psychologists (Germer 2013; Miller 2014) and modern Buddhists alike (McMahan 2008). Wilson (2014) argued that the popular appeal of mindfulness is in part due to a process of mystifying mindfulness by removing or deliberately obscuring its connections to Buddhism, religion, and ethics. As Monteiro et al. (2015) illustrated, one fundamental assumption of MBIs is that traditional and contemporary forms of mindfulness share a functional intent (to alleviate suffering) (p. 1). While much has already been written on the challenges of defining and operationalizing mindfulness for clinical psychology and empirical research (Bishop et al. 2004; Bodhi 2011; Gethin 2011; Shaprio et al. 2006), less attention has been placed on exploring the additional challenges that arise when traditional Buddhist and contemporary psychological understandings of suffering are subjected to a careful investigation. The central problem in establishing the compatibility of Buddhist and psychological notions of suffering is that there is no standard, operationalized definition of suffering used in clinical psychology. Rather, the tendency is to focus on components of suffering (e.g., stress, anxiety, and pain) rather than on suffering as such (Miller 2005), and different psychotherapies propose different models for the origin of these components of suffering and for their treatment. Cross-cultural differences in conceptions of suffering and coping strategies h a v e b e e n i d e n t i f i e d a s a d d i t i o n a l o b s t a c l e s i n operationalizing a Buddhist model of suffering (Tyson and Pongruengphant 2007). If it is the case that there is no standard operationalized definition of suffering in clinical psychology, then it is difficult to provide empirical support for the distinction made by Monteiro et al. (2015) that traditional mindfulness aims at understanding and uprooting the fundamental causes of suffering while contemporary mindfulness aims for relief (if not always freedom) from symptoms and attitudes that result in distress (p. 11). Based upon a similar concern about the minimal Buddhist content and context of MBIs, new psychotherapies (Loizzo et al. 2009; Miller 2014; Shonin et al. 2014a) have explicitly aimed to draw more from traditional Buddhism. Miller (2014) argued for how a Buddhist-based psychotherapy grounded in what she calls awakened presence and effortless mindfulness could heal all forms of mental and emotional suffering (pp. 19, 185). This model also aims to move beyond symptom reduction to the liberative recognition of the empty transparency of self and phenomena (p. xviii). While her theoretical model includes selected patient testimonies, it has not yet been empirically evaluated in a scientific study. Shonin et al. (2014a) provided a qualitative report on a more traditional Buddhist intervention called Meditation Awareness Training, which was subsequently applied in conjunction with CBT in a single-subject case study (Shonin et al. 2014b). As a direct response to the eclectic nature of MBIs, Loizzo et al. (2009) developed a 20-week Contemplative Self-Healing program based upon traditional Indo-Tibetan Buddhist principles and applied it in a study on quality of life among cancer survivors (Loizzo et al. 2010). Similar to Loizzo et al. (2009), Shonin et al. (2014a) and Miller (2014), Monteiro et al. (2015) suggested throughout that contemporary mindfulness may be incomplete and thus capable of only symptomatic relief (pp. 2, 6, 11). By contrast, traditional Buddhism was presented as being more complete and helps to align ones conduct in accordance with this structure of reality [the Eightfold Path] and attain liberation from suffering (p. 3). Not only has there been no attempt to quantify the degree of suffering that traditional mindfulness and contemporary mindfulness could alleviate, there is presently no means of doing so without consensus on what is meant both by suffering and by liberation (Davis and Vago 2013). A carefully designed study directly comparing the effects of Meditation Awareness Training or Contemplative Self-Healing to MBSR or MBCT is needed in order to determine whether there is any empirical support for the hypothesis that a greater fidelity to Buddhist principles and practices will be more efficacious in symptom relief or move beyond symptom relief to address the underlying root causes of suffering. Instead, what these criticisms currently amount to is a theoretical and normative claim about traditional and contemporary forms of mindfulness, and one in which the traditional Buddhist framework for suffering and its alleviation has been given the upper hand. I am less interested in arguing that there is a particular way in which suffe (...truncated)